Elysia Springer
Reggio Baby + GNARGO Bike
I was at the Kansas City Artist Institute, double-majoring in Interdisciplinary Arts (focused on textiles) and Art History. There was a movement to view social practice as a visual art form by working with community members who might not consider themselves artists or creatives. I had just returned from a studio-intensive semester in NYC during my senior year and was turned off by the prospect of making art as a solo artist for the bourgeois to engage with. It felt very isolated and not where I wanted to go, so I felt kind of stuck. I went on to intern at a Reggio-inspired preschool focused on inquiry art practices. During all the sitting, observing, and watching them explore the world for the first time, I had the realization that THIS is what I wanted to do. I also worked with infants and quickly discovered that they wanted to get their hands and mouths on just about anything that they really shouldn't. Being responsible for introducing new materials and modeling how to explore them, I started to think, “How do I do this safely and efficiently?” That’s when I began to prototype the sensory toys. They wanted to play with these small things, and I wanted to be able to present them with these wonderful little treasures in a safe way.
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How do I say this…There were a lot of ugly plastic products that did not represent real things at all. This was ten years ago, and the market has come a long way since then. But I would do tests in the infant room side by side with some crazy sculpture thing that I made out of recycled materials that served the purpose of a rattle and then put it next to the bright red maraca, and 99% of the time, they would choose the thing they hadn’t seen before. It was almost like they'd been conditioned to want to explore something new. At some point, I decided that I was just going to make it because it didn't exist. It was probably about a year of prototyping, carefully watching and seeing when things would break down, and finding ways to improve. It was validating also because I’d meet people at markets, and they would say, “I would always do this with a Ziploc bag, but they’d rip open eventually.” As humans, we are intuitive investigators. We have to understand something by manipulating it and exploring it in a sensory way.
“I see time as the most valuable thing in my life. Some days, I’d get back from my other job and realize, well, I've got three orders, so I'll be up till 10. That’s time that I’m not engaged with my family trying to get those orders filled.”
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I never actually liked the name “Reggio Baby,” but it was the most agreed-upon option I tested. Also, the market I was trying to hit was so niche - teachers interested in the Reggio Emilia approach - so it worked for that purpose. In 2017, I set up an Etsy shop, which was pure chaos. All the products were totally unique, so figuring out how to list them accurately and keep them in stock was not efficient at all. I was buying materials from Joann’s and I’d run out to restock only to realize they’d switched out their patterns for the season. That evolved when we moved to Northwest Arkansas, and I started to look into more efficient manufacturing, product safety testing, sourcing the right materials, forming an LLC, etc. Before that, my full-time job was raising my kids, so it was definitely a change of pace.
“When you work for yourself, you don't stop working. Being a service-oriented business is literally an around-the-clock situation. Your business becomes so much of who you are. You need to build a thick skin to take negative feedback or work with people who aren't into what you’re passionate about. Art school may have primed me to be able to take those critiques. Pouring so much of everything you are into something is very unlike working for somebody else or going into an office and then going home. It is all the time. You're always thinking of the next thing or the one customer that had a bad experience.”
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I am part of a statewide cohort of women entrepreneurs and it's great to have community and mentors that share and call out all the disparities that I feel every day. I'm a co-founder of GNARGO with my partner and even though we have two kids and run this company together, there is a different expectation of who carries more of the mental load of taking care of the kids. Awareness, understanding, and sharing that responsibility is happening, but it's not equal at all. My models growing up for how to be a woman were moms and caregivers and so pushing for a more unfamiliar role [running a business] was challenging. I also feel like we have to do a lot of the heavy lifting having to say things like “Actually, I am experiencing this”, or “Did you notice how this person talked to you and not me?” or “Do you see the representation in this space? That there is no one else that looks like me?”. When you run into biases, you have to be gentle, and that can get exhausting, too. Being in the bike industry as well, which is a male-dominated space, is very frustrating because I still get a lot of mansplaining or just mind-numbing bike jargon about setup and kit and all that. To be honest, that is motivation enough to show up in a skirt and not care at all about any of that. I am on my bike because it brings me joy and that’s valid enough. I see that as a representation of myself as a woman of color, a mom, a person who loves her bike but doesn't care about what's on it, how I'm dressed on it, or how many miles I'm getting. That is my motivation to continue to show up. Yes, I'm the CEO but I'm also so many other things that matter more to me.
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I’ve come to know my end user really well from so many years of observing, researching, and testing. When I’m at a market making in-person sales with a hesitant parent, I tell them to let the child see it, and the engagement is there instantly. Also, adapting to my customers as a designer and an entrepreneur has been crucial. The product has evolved beyond just infants and toddlers. I probably have more customers in the K-12 and adult ages than infants and toddlers right now. In a post-Covid world, there's been a surge in interest and knowledge about sensory needs and sensory exploration and all the mental health benefits of having something to fidget with, so that's shifted the market and the end user. I've always been driven, probably to a fault, just really tenacious and sometimes stubborn. I'm not going to stop; I won't give up. I can keep getting myself back up and keep going. I've always been competitive and been my own driving force. I can keep pushing myself to do things, and while there are many failures on my path, they don’t stop me. I'll keep going on to the next thing and keep moving on.
“I'm not a confrontational person, but knowing and believing in my product has influenced my confidence to say ‘this isn't good enough’ rather than ‘no, it's okay’ and just not use it or fix it later myself. I've seen over the years that it’s not a sustainable strategy. You have to be honest with people if something’s not right or can be improved, and they'll learn just as much as you will. So, I've changed for the better about communicating what I need. I’m still on that journey, though.”
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I would say pacing and timing. There's such a push to be the fastest, the quickest to market, make money as fast as possible, and develop something really fast. I’d say do it at your own pace. We have so many things that we're all juggling, and we tend not to prioritize ourselves in that, too. So do what you can when you can. Your idea is going to stay there. It's going to improve if you give it time. We're in a supportive space for new ideas, so if there is something you’re excited about, look at the entrepreneurial hubs out there. If you need a little money to get something started, there are many opportunities here to push an idea forward and lots of minds to come alongside and support you. Lean on your village, lean on your network, but stay true to yourself. Don’t push something if you're not ready. Trust your gut.
